


Flowering Lines

by elscorcho



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Aged-Up Peter Parker, Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Drunkenness, Illness, M/M, Organized Crime, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-03-08 01:37:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18885469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elscorcho/pseuds/elscorcho
Summary: "Prohibition didn't work in the Garden of Eden. Adam ate the apple."- Vicente FoxA turn of the century organized crime AU. Follows the journey of a young, ambitious Tony Stark, living life on his own terms. Then, thirty-years later, staring up from a gaping chasm of commitments he's not sure he can charm his way out of.A bright spot cycles past his office- a dutiful, working-class lad in a telegram messenger cap. A pretty distraction from the stress, or the potential to be molded into more?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A few things:
> 
> All images are labeled for noncommercial use in google image search.
> 
> Other pairings are included but not tagged because the scenes are brief and in the past.
> 
> Peter will not show up until chapter 3, and their relationship is a slow burn from there. 
> 
> Despite organized crime being a feature, there is no Mafia!Tony archetype here, if that's your jam. Think Iron Man 1 pre-Afghanistan moral ambiguity.
> 
> There will be notes at the end of every chapter with links to interesting history stuff! And to that end, don't hesitate to point out any glaring inaccuracies.
> 
> For a really great, overall primer on this era, watch Ken Burns documentary on prohibition (what inspired me to write this.) 
> 
> Thanks for reading!

 

_September 1886. Charleston, South Carolina_

 

The late summer air was sweet and warm like a biscuit, the cicadas chatty.

 

Anthony Stark was sixteen, sharp-featured and small for his age, devouring a book about the _Great Fire of London._ Seated at the dinner table with him were his father and younger sister, Rita. A brassy new gramophone coughed out a dated Confederate anthem, while breakfast sizzled away in the neighboring, gable-roofed kitchen.

 

Now and then, a breeze would slip past gauzy curtains. Ostentatious, intricately molded as the rest of the Stark estate, immense windows overlooked a wrapped porch, punctuated by Grecian pillars. The dining room was long and symmetrical, with high white walls and ceilings painted to match; at the far end, a sitting area where family and guests would retire to drink and smoke by the stone fireplace, a half-timbered splat of French Colonial. Beyond that, a ballroom, with pearly floors and towering portraits of long-buried kin.

 

 

Classic revivalist antebellum architecture. Hand-me-down bits of European indulgence the southern elite saw fit to emulate, because owning human beings made them feel like nobility.

 

The Civil War saw an end to slavery, twenty-some years ago. But even then, an awful lot of underpaid and overworked folk remained within the employ of Stark plantation, were born, got sick, and died there.

 

Tony’s mother, Maria, a society woman through-and-through, with waist long sable hair and a waxy expression bustled in through a noisy kitchen door, silver tray in hand. Behind her, a young kitchen attendant named Dorothy followed, with two pitchers of juice and water.

 

“Few more.” Maria sounded tired, in her soft southern drawl. She flicked a sluggish hand at Dorothy to urge her back into the kitchen.

 

“Please do somethin’ about that goddawful creak, Howard.” she added, on her way out.

 

“I’ll get one of O’Leary’s boys on it.”

 

The O’Learys were an Irish family who lived on the property and saw to various repairs around the estate. Available day or night, they, like many others, had been displaced during the Potato Famine in the late 1840s.

 

“I’m having the ladies from prayer group over for brunch tomorrow.” she insisted.

 

“Sure enough. By tonight, then.”

 

“Need a hand, ma?” Rita, Tony’s boisterous little sister watched the preparations. She looked eager to take a break from all the notions needed to mend her school dress.

 

“Girl, I told you to keep hemming.” Maria replied, lowering a pan of deflated corn muffins. “I want you lookin’ smart on your first day, not like we’ve been using you to clean out the stables.”

 

“Yes’m.”

 

Juggling more than she’s used to, Maria scurried in and out, Dorothy trailing behind. She placed another serving dish beside Rita.

 

“No, no. Back-tack, how Maybel does it,” she eyed the stitching severely. “Sturdy, like it’s brand new. I won’t have any of the neighbors thinkin’ we’re another plantation gone belly up- oh, sakes!” she burned her finger on a pan, popped the scorched digit in her mouth.

 

“Dorothy, turn that thing off.” She gestured to the gramophone.

 

The cook obliged, breaking the contact between whirling disc and needle, cutting “The Yellow Rose of Texas” off at “Rosa-lee.”

 

Howard folded his paper, as his wife pushed a steaming bowl of buttered greens toward him.

 

“Book off the table, Anthony,” she came back a final time with two more plates heaped with meats and poached eggs; all said, far too much food for three people.She narrowed her eyes as her husband plucked out a muffin, half of it crumbling behind in the pan.

 

“If Maybel were here, she’d show me the trick to keepin’ their shape.” She huffed, taking a seat. “Hope she’s enjoyin’ her _weekend off_ , because I’m fixin’ to nap already..”

 

Maybel Rhodes, their housekeeper, was a willowy black woman in her fifties. She and her eldest daughter, Cassandra, were the last of the former domestic staff (formerly a dozen or so) to remain after reconstruction.

 

A few times a year, she would take the afternoon or weekend off, usually to visit one of her children. This weekend, both she and her daughter left to attend a funeral.

 

James, her youngest son, was Tony’s age, and lived on the property as a sharecropper. He and Tony often played together as children. The family had many workers who tended the fields this way. Freemen who gave a share of their yield as a form of rent.  

 

 

“Well sit down, sit down and eat.” Her husband urged, dismissing the young cook.

 

“Thank you, sir.” Dorothy gave a little curtsy and left, shuttering the three kitchen doors behind her.

 

Howard flipped through his paper and in due time, encountered something he didn’t like.

 

“What is it, pa?” Tony asked, if only to absorb a snatch of second-hand reading.

 

“It’s that old negro again, flapping his gums about banning liquor. Thought someone would have shot his ass by now.”

 

Maria shook her head.

 

“‘Course,” she tutted, “take our fields. Livelihoods-”

 

“An’ why not add booze to the list.” Howard finished, turned to his children.

 

“Y’all know your grandpap treated his slaves well,” He insisted, eyes seeking the nearest photo of his father, and it wasn’t difficult, because his portraits were everywhere.

Howard senior, decked out in his Lieutenant Colonel regalia, a musket strapped to his back and mouth set grimly above an inky walrus beard. Tony always thought he looked like how pirates were described.

 

“Passed around the bottle twice a week for a job well done. Now, does that sound like a cruel master to _you_?”

 

Anthony thumbed through his memory catalog… Frederick Douglass, that was the fellow. _My Bondage and my Freedom_. He’d read the front and back covers before moving on to a slim instructional volume about self defense using a gentleman’s cane - but now, with his pa madder than a box of frogs, he’d figured anyone with the power to stir up that kind of heat deserved a top spot on his to-read list.

 

“I say, if’n you’re weak, that’s your own constitution. Don’t go blamin’ the liquor for that,” his father spat.

 

“Politics.” Maria’s voice had dropped to a whisper. For women, that particular word was not seemly.

 

She nibbled on some bacon and pat her mouth with a napkin.  “Yanks want to start another war over state’s rights,” she dared to elaborate.

 

“There it is,” Howard smacked a hand against the table. “You know the bastards are itchin’ for it.”

 

Maria sighed and pushed her half-full plate to the side, ending the conversation.

 

“When you kids get home from school, mind the damp wallpaper in the parlor. And put together some formal clothes, because the Reverend is comin’ over for supper-”

 

And on she went about the next dull social event they would be hosting.

 

The plantation had sheltered wounded soldiers during the war and it was something of a celebrity to the people in town. But Tony knew better than anyone how needy that house was, the cost of keeping up appearances. He’d been a sickly, quiet child and spent a lot of time cooped up, reading his books, watching repair folk come and go.

 

Sometimes, when his mother wasn’t around to catch him, he’d ask the O’Leary clan questions about engineering and tools. Not just within the house, but the inner workings of farm equipment and the multiple carriages out back, whatever there was to tinker with, improve, and repair.

 

Breakfast passed without much additional fanfare, followed by an equally insignificant day of school.

 

Afterward, Tony headed to the largest private repository of books in the state. Thanks to a generous donation from his grandparents sixty years ago, the Charleston Library Society let him come and go as he pleased.

 

Tony reckoned he’d conquered about three hundred titles by then. Whenever he’d knock another one out, the weirder and wilder the topic, the more clever he felt, the _closer_ he felt to answering the unanswered. Why he felt so unusual, so ill-fitted and suffocated by the privileged, but empty life he was dropped into .

 

There was power in knowing and soon, he’d learn that knowledge made it easier to get what wanted, wheedle away from what he didn't. Small victories like winning schoolyard bets, impressing girls, flummoxing a bully now and then and correcting closed-minded teachers who couldn't tell Stonehenge from a pile of millstones. 

 

Like snapping shut a book, he felt it. A chapter ending.

 

Anthony moved out of his family estate two weeks later.

          

* * *

 

  

 

The day he left, his eyes coolly swept ahead, across acres of ripe tobacco, the leaning shanty houses, the sun winking reflections off a winding stream in the distance.

 

His parents left him with nothing more than two suitcases of some clothing and personal effects that were of no worth to them, anyway. The only thing he valued and couldn’t take along was the bulk of his library, which he left to James Rhodes.

 

He’d stashed some money away. Enough to take a carriage into the city, a train into wherever, cost of a motel for a few weeks until he found a job that paid. Not bad, for a plan concocted on a whim. 

 

Anthony rolled his shoulders, gripped the handles of his suitcases and stood a little taller, shoulders back, ready.

 

* * *

 

 

Three days later, while passing through the provincial town of Damascus Maryland, Anthony got restless and decided to disembark from his train.

 

The station was much smaller than the one in Charleston. It offered a single information vestibule, which he used to inquire about the nearest boarding house.

 

                                                                                   

 

 

After a pleasant, hour walk along a stretch of soybean fields, Anthony reached a two-story, grey planked home, modest, well-tended and welcoming. A plentiful garden soaked up the sun to the right of the main house and a smallish barn to the left housed a cluster of animals, not enough to make it a working farm but providing eggs and milk for what must be a reasonably full house of tenants. Beyond that, a larger barn stood in the distance.

 

A little girl, playing with dolls on the lawn out front, offered up a gap-toothed smile when she saw him approach.

 

She looked like Rita. When she was younger, not this afternoon, when the heat of her glare could have seared a cattle brand into his forehead. She was jealous and sullen and in her place, he would have been, too.

 

“Da! Visitor!” Called out the little girl and shortly thereafter a man arrived, wringing his hands against a rag. Anthony schooled himself, squared his shoulders and stood tall..

 

Suddenly, the man ducked, eye level with the doll, and jabbed a finger at it.

 

“This the one?”

 

The little girl giggled.

 

“Noo!  That’s my dolly. I think this boy here needs somethin’.”

 

“Ah!” Clint straightened, tipped off his hat to wipe his brow with his arm, offered his hand.

 

“Clint Barton.”

 

“Anthony Stark, sir. Pleasure.”

 

“You lookin’ to board, son?”

 

“Just me and these two cases here,” he went ahead and explained, knowing that this man would want to know something of his circumstances. “Grew up working on a tobacco farm with my ma. She passed. Just the two of us, there were.”

 

“Sorry to hear that.”

 

“Too many memories there now, you understand. Took a train up North and stopped when I saw all the bean fields. Figured there’d be a lot of work to go around.”

 

“Looks that way, don’t it?” Clint shook his head, a little evasively, which Anthony took to mean he didn’t have much confidence in the job market. “We got a room, if you’ve got the funds.”

 

The teenager claimed to have enough for two weeks, the longest that could be offered up without arousing suspicion. He decided, should this place not work out, he’d move on somewhere else and try again.

 

That night, as part of his room and board, he dined with the Barton family and three other tenants, listened to their stories, laughed, drank and sang. When asked about his own life, the lies came easily, believable mutations of narratives tapped from the books he'd consumed.

 

Tony had never socialized this long or this fully his entire life, like everything up to that point had been practice for the real thing. He couldn't wait to master other new skills. 

 

The next morning, he slept in, luxuriated in the sun while it lingered over his bed, showered and ate what remained of breakfast, which only existed thanks to Clint’s wife, Laura, putting some aside.

.

“Just this once, since you’re new here,” she teased. “You should know that if you plan on sleepin’ that long, there won’t be nothin’ left.”

 

“Thank you ma’am, I’ll surely remember that.” Anthony sat down and poured himself some juice. “It’s just….the bed you set up was so comfortable, never felt the like before.” He said, firing off a smile he hoped was charming. He’d practiced in a mirror, because a book on Victorian Manners suggested it.

 

It must have worked, because she smiled and waved him away to attend to her infant, who was cooing for some attention.

 

Anthony thought about how he’d like to fill his day. Lounging, truth be told, but he knew that wasn’t what a young man looking to support himself would be doing.

 

The huge barn in the distance caught his attention through the window, once more.

 

“What’s going on over there?” He swallowed a mouthful of warm oatmeal and molasses.

 

Laura’s sleeves were rolled up as she cleaned and her apron was spotted with greyish water. But her face was fresh and friendly as she itched a bubble off her cheek.

 

“That’s the _other_ family business,” she said. “They fix up old carriages. Custom work.”

 

“That’s mighty interesting.”

 

Anthony waited to bring up the barn again, putting in his dues first, insisting on cleaning up his own dishes and learning how to change a diaper,.

 

“Do you think,” he finally ventured, “they’d mind if I came around the barn? Just to see?”

 

“Well…” Laura paused, and smiled at his charming pout. “Alright. Tell ya what.”

 

She grabbed a pitcher.

 

“Fill this up at the well. Tell ‘em I told you to bring it for me. Maybe they’ll let you pass around tools.”

 

“Gosh, thank-you, Ma’am!”

 

Clint and three of his sons came out of the barn when they saw Anthony’s dark head crest over the hill.

 

“Ma got you doing her bidding already?”

 

“She must know ya’ll work up a storm out here,” Tony said, “anything I can do to help?.”

 

“Not unless you know carriages, my friend,” Clint admitted.

 

Anthony walked into the barn, slowly circled the closest of the vehicles.

 

    

 

“Chaise?” he guessed, “broken dash rail, looks like…”

 

He stepped to the next broken model, “I see a handsome stagecoach in need of a new leaf spring, right over yonder…..” and then, considerably grander, at the far end, “Hush my mouth! Is that a landau! Those are limited, those are. Damn near impossible to find replacement parts, though.”

 

“Shit! Where’d you learn all that, boy?” Clint had nearly choked on his water.  

 

Tony circled back out to meet the three men at the mouth of the barn. He shook his head, loose bangs falling across his brow, bent to pluck a blade of foxtail from the earth and picked at his teeth.

 

He shrugged. “My last boss was a rich son of a bitch.”

 

Later that night, the Barton family would raise a toast to Anthony Stark, their new tenant worker.

 

* * *

 

_September, 1887_

 

Anthony would have stayed at the boarding house much longer if Prohibition hadn’t rolled into town.

 

Damascus had become a “dry” county, prohibiting the sale, distribution and production of alcohol, almost one summer, to the day, since he’d arrived, the least fun anniversary gift one could ask for.

 

A year of working in the barns, repairing carriages and tending to livestock, had filled out Tony’s physique and gave him a preview of what kind of man he would finally ripen to be.

 

He hadn’t been reading as much. The nearest library was a bit of a jaunt, and he’d gone through the collections of all three of Clint’s sons, and his eldest daughter, within months. The young man was not done savoring, sowing his wild oats, and he knew that living in a bone dry county, so far from the invigoration of knowledge, would be counterproductive to that end, so he’d decided one day to roll on out.

 

Damascus had one thing going for it, though: Daniel.

 

The person Tony would miss the most was Clint’s youngest son. Fair-haired, grey-eyed Daniel, with his easy manner and understated sense of humor. He was one year Anthony’s senior, industrious and quiet, with hard hands and a very gentle heart. And Lord, was he ever handsome.

 

Anthony was excited to move on and see more, but a nagging sensation prodded at his gut. A giddy feeling, one that made him want to take Daniel’s hand and persuade him to come along, make like the genre that Daniel exclusively read; contemporary adventures like Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Treasure Island and penny dreadfuls about the Old West.  

 

But he knew the young man’s commitment to his family made that unlikely. Plus, his tall tales had sprouted like a beanstalk, poking through the cloudy realm of fairy tales. He felt uneasy, thinking of the heart-breaking look on Daniel’s face if he knew how much he’d been lied to.Probably the same guileless, gut-punched mug he made when his little girlfriend, Polly, broke up with him or when his favorite goat, Bartholomew died of old age. Daniel had a method of concealing unmanly emotion that was unfortunately as transparent as a firefly wing.

 

The night that Tony decided to break the news, the two of them were working late. The rest had all returned to the boarding house. Their project was a gorgeous red and gold coach, intended for someone obviously well-to-do and looking to stand out.

 

The sun had just begun its sleepy slip behind the hills. Shortly, their vision would be cut, and working with gas-lamps would be too difficult.

 

“Break time.” Anthony said, producing a bottle of Johnnie Walker he’d taken from home, a year ago.

 

“Hey now! Where’d you get that?” Daniel laughed.

 

“Possession aint a crime” Tony took a gulp, gritting his teeth. “Been savin’ this for a special occasion.”

 

“The coach aint even finished and you’re celebratin’....typical Tony..still can’t figure if makes you impatient, or just the type always lookin’ on the bright side of things.”

 

The warm familiarity of his tone brought back that same odd feeling from earlier.

 

“Some things can be both.” he said,  taking another drink and passing it to his companion. “Like how somethin’ ending can be kind of poetic, you know? Both sad and beautiful. If the memories were good, s’all that matters.”

 

“I dunno what you mean, Tony. What makes somethin’ po-e-tic?”

 

“ _As the waves make towards the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end,”_ Tony recited Shakespeare, from a book of sonnets he’d also brought from home.

 

“That’s real pretty but I still don’t-”

 

“I’m leavin, Danny…movin on..”

 

“You’re-” Daniel choked on his whiskey, croaking out his next words. “If this is about pay, I think my da would be happy to talk about a little raise. After all, it’s a been a year, and this project is gonna bring in a nice-”

 

“S’not that.” Tony said. “It’s nothin’ nobody did...just my time to go.”

 

Daniel, never the complainer, just shook his head and took another firm drink. There was silence for a great while, because Tony could tell there was something else his friend wanted to get off his chest.

 

“Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”Daniel finally said, squaring his jaw like a brave interpretation of steel. “That’s what my da says, anyway.”

 

“M-hmm.” Tony agreed. “True enough.”

 

Back and forth, they passed the bottle, watching the sun creep lower and lower, like an hourglass losing sand. Tony felt like time was running out, but running out for what?

 

“Wanna know the real reason I left home a year ago?” He found himself saying, the gallop in his heart dancing beside the liquor in his system.

 

He was leaving. What difference would one more lie make?

 

Daniel perked up. “Somethin' other than your ma?”

 

“Yeah, after she died. Rest in peace old girl,” Tony said, offhandedly. “I started…. I dunno...actin up, I guess you could say.”

 

“Uh-huh. I prob’ly would too,” and yes, there was that proof, that kicked puppy look on his handsome face at the mere thought of his mother dying.

 

No, this sweet hayseed wasn’t going anywhere.

 

“I got caught...foolin’ around,” Tony said, clicking his tongue. “With a boy. Kissin, and whatnot. They chased me out with an 1855 Frank Wesson.” he squinted one eye, aimed a fake rifle. “Pow! Almost popped me good in the shin.”

 

Daniel’s eyes widened and he looked away, jaw working over time, minute twitches of muscle.

 

“Shoot. That’s not a very funny joke, Tony.” He whispered.

 

“Not jokin! Just thought you should know, being my best friend and all.” Tony shrugged, taking a sip. "Sorry. Forget I said anythin.'"

 

After a long while, Daniel’s voice came out, cracking. “Was,” He cleared his throat. “Was it strange? Kissin’ another boy?”

 

“Hard to explain," he said, apologetic. "Physical stuff's gotta be...felt. To understand." 

 

That night in the dark masking grass Tony found his first kiss, a whiskey-licked and humid embrace. Daniel made an urgent sound and clutched him with those generous, working-class hands and they fit together like carriage pieces.

 

“Tony,” the other boy gasped, and it was though his own husky sounds brought him hurling back to reality. He sat up, they broke apart. Tony watched his face, sun-burnished cheeks burn hotly, blonde eyelashes darker, wet.

 

“I-I can’t….we….”  Tony reached for him, found air. Daniel had taken off back toward the house like a bat out of hell.

 

That next morning, before anyone had risen for breakfast, Tony hopped another train, or perhaps the same one as before, he liked to imagine, in a romantic sort of way.

 

He took a seat where a discarded newspaper sat, the front page of which read, “Wonder of Paris to Debut at 1889 World’s Fair.”

 

A photo of the tower, at that point just a squat framework of twisted iron, sat below the headline. Scathing criticisms bleated, “gimmicky,” “half-built factory pipe,” “giant ungainly skeleton,” and more.

 

 

 

Tony quite liked the incomplete strangeness. How could you criticize something that wasn’t fully realized? He thought there was something very beautiful about it, like that unfinished coach of gold and red he and Daniel had been working on. Limitless, full of potential.

 

Like that stirring kiss had been. Stilted and stuck in time, but inspiring all the same. It urged him forward. Tony wondered if perhaps in two years he’d be in a position to celebrate Eiffel's grand debut, to thousands of expo visitors, hopefully many of them as beautiful as Daniel, wandering and hopeful and looking for the same answers he was. And hopefully, he'd leave, a more completed man, himself.

 

Philadelphia, the article said, had been the first US city to host the World’s Fair in 1876. Billed as the “Centennial International Exhibition,” it was arranged to commemorate the one-hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

 

With that in mind, the sight of a denser populace, a metropolitan landscape of skyscrapers and busy streets, snapped its fingers in his face and told him get up, boy, scoot! _This_ is the place to be. 

 

 

He was quite awake when he stepped off the train in Philadelphia. Now right hereis a city, he thought, looking in every direction. The North was so modern, all business, ten steps ahead.

 

But sightseeing and uncovering all its secrets would have to wait. The ride from Damascus had kicked up a thirst and a sweet tooth, and a sign for a public restroom also reminded him of other baser needs, so Tony wandered into the nearest drugstore, took care of the latter, then pitched himself up to the raised fountain counter top for a beverage.

 

The soda jerk, whose name-tag read “Happy,” was occupied at the time, a group of young boys who looked like they'd just ransacked a toy store, decked out in faux cowboy gear. The young man acknowledged Tony with a nod and came over when he was free.

 

“Sorry 'bout the wait. What ails ‘ya, buddy?” He asked, expression even, but friendly.

 

“Just got off the train and my stomach’s a little flippy, truth be told. Got anything for me?”

 

 

 

“You bet.” The young man, who seemed about Tony’s age, turned to face a row of shining aluminum dispensers and knobs to fill Tony’s order.

 

The Carolina boy could already see that the pace of life, on the streets and at work, were speedier here. Happy expertly mixed up a sweet pink concoction, sliding it forward.

 

“Cherry Phosphate.” He described, proudly. “The cherry bark helps with indigestion.”

 

“Thanks a million."

  

 

Tony  hadn’t been to a proper drug store fountain since the last time he’d been in Charleston, and the chilled, tangy blitz of carbonation on his tongue felt invigorating.

 

“Train huh? Where from?” Happy inquired.

 

“Maryland. Was a tenant worker for a while-”

 

Suddenly, a blur of strawberry blonde flew into the shop. A tall, pretty, freckled girl with blue eyes, clutching schoolbooks, ran up to the counter.

 

“Pardon me, sorry!” She fumbled with her belongings, beside Tony, who had sat at the counter.

 

“Coming or going, Miss?” Happy asked.

 

“Going! Quickly, if you don’t mind! I pulled an all-nighter and need a little zip before my exam.”

 

“Doctor Pep-?”

 

“More zip than that!”

 

“Alright, alright.”

 

Happy prepared her something else. A dark caramel and brown delight, not as fizzy as the rest, and distinctly thicker.

 

“Here you go. A Moxie, for a moxie girl.

 

“Thanks, Happy!”

       

 

As she sucked it down, Happy explained, sagely:

 

“'s'gotta bite to it. But helps with test jitters and softening of the brain.”

 

Tony wasn’t sure if all the things touted about soft drinks were actually true, but they certainly sounded good. He peered around the drug store; never had he seen a place so decked out in advertisements.So many colors and slogans and enticements.

 

“Wish we could get some of that Coca Wine in here. It’s all the ra-a-ge in Europe.”

 

Pepper licked her lips and smiled. Her breath smelled like licorice.

 

“But this will do. Sorry I can’t stay and chit-chat! Toodles!”

 

And the girl with moxie was off, a bright red barn in a distant field. Tony’s thumb made circles in the condensation of his soda glass.

 

“Who was _that_?”

 

A week later, Tony had a new job, assisting the druggist behind the pharmacy counter, a companionable roommate, Happy Hogan, and a week after that, a new girlfriend, fifteen years old, bright and talkative and named after her favorite soft drink.

 

Pepper.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "In the Southern States, masters induce their slaves to drink whisky, in order to keep them from devising ways and means by which to obtain their freedom. In order to make a man a slave, it is necessary to silence or drown his mind." - Frederick Douglass - http://frederickdouglassinbritain.com/journey/WorldTemperanceConvention/
> 
> "The Eiffel Tower debuted 126 years ago. It nearly tore Paris apart." - https://www.vox.com/2015/3/31/8314115/when-the-eiffel-tower-opened-to-the-public
> 
> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/why-we-took-cocaine-out-of-soda/272694/


	2. Chapter 2

**Prohibition only drives drunkenness behind doors and into dark places, and does not cure it or even diminish it.  - Mark Twain**

 

_ August 1893 _ .  _ Philadelphia, Pennsylvania _

 

Tony was twenty-three years old, four fingers into his preferred hard beverage, Johnnie Walker, parked at the bar of his favorite neighborhood saloon,  _ Lee’s. _

__

Savoring, slow, he took his whiskey neat. He looked like a man who had a more or less acceptable day, as men are wont to celebrate to excess or over-consume to numb their sorrow, and Tony appeared to be doing neither.

__

He left his crisp, white pharmacists coat on, buttoned neatly over a dress shirt, his dark hair slicked, parted down the middle and sharp face miraculously holding a close shave from that morning. 

__

His best friend and roommate, Happy Hogan, had no such composure. One thick arm wrapped over the bar, slipping now and then as he thrust his glass in time with slurred accusations.

__

“You...you…” 

__

“Big Boy words, Happy. I know you can do it.” 

__

“I introduced you to her!” He said, achingly. “I got you that job! Stan!” Happy called out to the bartender. “Stan, c’mere and lis...lissen to what this  _ louse _ did today. I can harl….hardly b’leev it...” 

__

Stan, the old barkeep, sighed and made his way over. 

__

“I’m all ears, Hogan. Wait-” he said, pulling out his hearing aid, a brass horn affixed to a metal headband. “Now I’m all ears.” 

 

“Jus...just guess, alright…I’ll give you two choice….choices…” he held up two fingers, initially three.

“Did ‘e call it quits wit’ his stunner of a fe...fiance, outta the blue, or….walk out on the job, jus as the old man was gonna...give ‘im the world. G’wan ‘n guess...”

“I dunno, the one with the dame?” 

“Both! He did both!” Happy wailed. 

Stan deferred  to the other young man, the one who wasn’t drunk, his bushy grey eyebrow hovering above large dark spectacles. 

“So you lost your woman and job all in the same day, and  _ he’s _ the one carrying on?” 

Tony shrugged. “He was very invested.” 

“Well, you’re the only bums in here to talk to, so I guess I’ll bite...what’s the story?”

“It’s not all that interesting-” Tony demurred. 

 

Just then, the three men turned to acknowledge a commotion outside. A group of ten or so women, wielding signs, had begun to collect out front. Stan groaned.

 

“It’s those dippy broads again.” 

“They’re not comin’ in  _ here _ , are they?” Happy cringed. “Man deserves to get loaded in peace.” 

“Not so far, they haven’t. They just chant a spell til they tire out or the cops bust them up. Lord help the husbands that have to deal with their shrieking at home.” 

The women were prohibitionists, part of a growing movement called the  The Woman's Christian Temperance Union.Tony knew a lot more about their cause than one would expect, because his fiance…. _ former _ fiance belonged. 

 

Though she wasn’t particularly Christian and privately, a consumer of liquor herself, Pepper, who preferred to go by her birth name Virginia these days, had said: 

“Sure, the alcohol bit is severe but….Tony!” Her eyes lit up, spectacularly. “There’s no other group pushing these issues to the forefront....votes for women, child labor, prison reform.” 

Breathless, she continued. “The booze….in my opinion, nothing will come of it. It brings in far too much tax revenue for the government to write off. I don’t bring that up at meetings….it’s very personal for these ladies, being roughed up by a drunken spouse...savings bled dry and kids going hungry because of some habit. I keep mum, out of respect. But who knows? Maybe better regulation, now that would be dandy. Oh, but if they get half the other things they’re fighting for, can you just imagine?” 

 

 

By God, did he love Pepper. He truly did.

She taught him a lot of things. How to be well-spoken, but still understood. How to dance properly. How to savor your surroundings. Every weekend, it had been some hole-in-the wall with outstanding cuisine, inspiring plays, orators, exhibits.

She was curious and worldly, but never snobbish, despite her father owning half the pharmacies in Philadelphia. 

Speaking of which:

“Wait. Happy,” Tony remarked, “did I just hear you say that  _ you _ got me the job at the drugstore? Pal, that was Pepper.”

“Yeah but  _ I _ introduced you to her-”

“Uh-huh.” He finished his drink, holding it out for Stan to refill. “You Yanks are so literal.” 

Tony’s life had been picture perfect. Sweet, but artificial. A syrupy cure-all with no evidence to back up its claims. He’d filled enough tinctures, tonics and pill bottles to know

“You know people are gonna…..talk, right?” His friend had sobered up, for this particular thought, for its dangerous implication. 

“Well,” Tony shrugged. “Good thing I won’t be around to hear it, eh?”

Happy passed out before he got any kind of explanation. Tony was glad for it, because he wasn’t looking forward to lying to another best friend. 

“Better lay him down before he starts shitting through his teeth. Over here, I’ll show you a spot in the back that’ll do.”

The old man called for his dishwasher and nephew, Russell, to help drag Happy away to sleep off his stupor.

Much like the energetic breed of terrier, Russell was bouncy and wide-eyed. Nineteen, fluffy-haired, short for his age with a brilliant smile that wrinkled around his eyes. 

“You got it, uncle Stan!” 

The two of them brought Happy to a glorified storage closet with a mattress and plopped him there, summarily. They shared a laugh and Tony couldn’t take his eyes off the other boy. The excitement of knowing he was about to leave again brought back a familiar feeling, a reckless knock.  

“Phew!” Russell exaggerated his exhaustion. “That one aint missin’ no meals, huh?”.  

“Who’dve thought a big softie could be so heavy.” Tony added, nudging Russell at the rib, and the boy giggled again. “Never heard such unmanly blubberin’ in my life.”    
  


“Yeah...he seemed upset. I, uh...overheard. I mean!-” Russell nervously admitted. “I could hear you talking about...leaving? Sorry, it’s none of my business.”

“It’s alright,” Tony settled on one corner of the mattress, lighting a cigarette and gesturing to the floor with his eyes. 

Russell sat, obedient, cross-legged and back attentive. 

Tony exhaled a plume of smoke. “Bet you hear a lot around a place like this.” 

“Oh sure. It’s not as interesting as you might think, though. Pretty depressing, most of it. You, though…sounds like you’ve got an adventure ahead. I’m sure jealous.” He admitted.

“We’ll see.” Tony shrugged, passing his cigarette. 

“Thank you...Tony, was it?”

“Tony Stark.” He replied, eyes pinned to the mouth around his cigarette, making sure to brush hands when it was passed back. Well-suited, nimble hands. 

“When does your uncle let you off work, Russ?” 

**~**

Tony moved to Chicago a week later, with the intention of making a name for himself in marketing.

On the train, he sketched out his first idea: a poster for soda pop, a boisterous young man on the Eiffel tower, head tipped back, curls in the breeze, eyes crinkling as he sipped before a dreamy, watercolor backdrop of Paris. 

He wrote a letter to Happy, opening with a splashy description of the World’s Fair. He’d missed the one in Paris, occupied at the time by his growing career in pharmacy, but this fair in Chicago, according to the papers, would top all the expositions that came before it.

Tony’s intention had been to avoid immediate contact with his Philadelphia relationships. He didn’t owe anyone an update on his whereabouts or his personal life, reaching out like some mewling homesick child. 

But another part of him felt guilty for the debauchery that took place in their apartment, while Happy, who paid half of the rent, lay indisposed.

Russell had been a terrific kisser and very vocal. He claimed it wasn’t his first time but Tony could smell a liar, having told more than a few thumpers in his time, but he found the bravado charming and played along anyway, chipping at his composure and laying bare his lies with his hands and mouth.

The boy was longing to impress, perhaps hoping to snare Tony’s heart and find himself whisked away across the country, a reaction so different from the stiff panic that struck Daniel when they became intimate. 

Tony marked up Russell’s neck and bit the pulse there, a little too hard, searching for responsive places, tucking the results away for later, taking his fill of this boy and letting him believe whatever fairytale he wanted to believe, as long as it kept him this fun and eager to play with.

In the end, the two young men made like bread and butter, rutting on a walnut fainting couch passed down from Happy’s grandmother, messily, sometimes awkwardly, but without pretense or shame. Tony found satisfaction against Russells flat, soft belly and Russell, shortly after, in Tony’s coercive mouth. 

These urges had been smouldering for years, sluggish and painful. A short, but heated flare of a memory sprang to life. Daniel. Tony felt like he was honoring the fire his dear friend had shyly stoked. He would not allow it to extinguish.

 

“To think, this city had been burned to a crisp twenty years ago,” he wrote of the Great Chicago Fire, not sure how else to begin his letter. Heat had been on his mind since leaving Philadelphia. That, and Russell’s glowing face in the throes of pleasure, the way his spit-slicked cock throbbed against Tony’s, how pretty his ass looked as he bent to get dressed.  

The 1893 Columbian Expo was so named to commemorate the landing of Christopher Columbus in 1492. There were life size replicas of his three ships and a look to the future with every advancement mankind had to offer. The world was truly on the brink of a technological and societal revolution.

 

Tony  went on to describe the exhibits; the very first motorcar fueled entirely by gas.

 

“I think I’m in love,” he declared, in his letter to Happy.  “I want one in every color.”

The exhibition also had, “this contraption called a ferris wheel. I’d greatly like to take it back with me, but I fear it’s too big,” and a sampling of chocolate from a man named Milton Hershey, who “obviously knows his stuff.” 

 

 

There was also a smaller scale buzz going round the city. Young women, usually travelling alone, were going missing. Foul play was suspected, by some. Others dismissed the issue, citing that the chaos of the fair allowed young, adventurous spirits to shed their old identity and begin a new life in Chicago. Tony certainly understood that sentiment, but he had a feeling the truth was more sinister. Then again, he’d read a lot of mystery and crime novels.  

He omitted this topic from his letter, knowing how worried Happy could get. 

The other piece  that Tony did not include, because he did not possess the words to describe something so alien, was a breathtaking display of incandescence demonstrated by Westinghouse. It simply could not be explained. The concept of electricity was still regarded as a supernatural force, and inventions that built upon it were speculative at best.

 

Soon, they said, this magical network would flow through every home. There was a prototype kitchen powered by electrical appliances, and Tony found the idea of turning a knob when a task was done much more appealing than flicking one’s hand at a human being and saying, “Dorothy, you’re dismissed.” 

Tony stared at the letter and tossed in a breezy P.S. 

“Give my regards to Pepper, if she’s amenable to them. And if she wouldn’t be too disgusted, I would love to correspond with her as well.”

When it came time to settling in, Tony encountered a road block. 

As it happened, the University of Chicago, where Tony really had his heart set on going because he’d read that J.D. Rockefeller himself funded the new building, was full up in the marketing department, so he settled for the next choice: Attorney. The program had just been introduced and did not formally have it’s own wing. Tony quite liked the idea of breaking some ground. 

And from a practical standpoint, he concluded: fantastic as these inventions had been to gawk at, if the twentieth century was to have moving, conveyer-belt floors, giant vehicles barrelling down the street powered by flammable gas, someone would need to be around to pick up the legal pieces of the accidents they might cause. All of these innovators and companies vying for patents, probably amounted to some friction of ownership, a fair amount of two-timing and backstabbing. 

Like Daniel had drawled, in his sweet simple way, “Po-e-tic.”

~

 

_ April, 1897. Chicago, Illinois. _

Four years later, a stone’s throw from the turn of the century, Tony was on course to finish his law degree  _ summa cum laude _ , the highest distinction. 

In that time, he had stayed in semi-regular contact with both Happy and Pepper and even got back in touch with Rita, his sister, whose anger had cooled despite being a full-fledged teenager. His parents had evidently taken to telling people he’d been thrown from a runaway carriage, hit his head on a stump, went insane and ran off with the circus. 

Tony downplayed his success in school, the savings he had built up from the pharmacy and his legal apprenticeships. This was to spare his sister unneeded jealousy and to avoid his parents asking for money one day. It was clear the estate and their inflated lifestyles had become more and more difficult to maintain. 

Which is why the life he planned would be one of self-sufficiency and control. No unnecessary baggage.

He understood the risk of having dry spells in a field that took on work, case-by-case, and it made him wonder if the connections he had in Philadelphia were essential to his ability to thrive in the field.

It was difficult, in his mind, to distinguish between going back and going  _ backward _ . But even harder to deny the bond and the trust a community developed for their pharmacist. The clinical, tempered man who eased their symptoms, whether that method be chemically sound or simply in the mind, who dispensed the heroin cough suppressant for their infant and the morphine for their grandpap’s veteran aches. At times, he felt like a semi-religious figure, bestowing miracles and wonder pills. 

 

 

Though, perhaps the title did not hold as much weight these days, given the headlines that dominated the news a year ago. A man named Herman Mudgett, America’s very own Jack the Ripper, had plead guilty to multiple gruesome murders. Indeed, he had used the clamor of the World’s Fair to lure women to his home, an elaborate “Murder House” of torturous traps.  

Upon moving to Chicago, Mudgett became a pharmacist under the alias H.H. Holmes. And Tony wondered if it was because of this clean-cut, trustworthy image, that he was able to get away with, well, murder. 

For better or worse, image was everything.

This thought did not bring him any closer to a decision. But he figured, like it always did, the answer would arrive when it was meant to. 

It was Spring, close to graduation and the campus was bustling. He would have stayed and read for longer, but had a stimulating engagement planned. Such was his rigorous schedule of apprenticing and studies.

Tony exited the library, checked his reflection in a bathroom mirror and headed outside to take a drink at the water fountain in the center of the main lawn. 

As he neared his destination, he saw that many students had gathered in a circle. Beneath that layer was the real commotion.

Prohibitionists. This time, not a woman in sight, but men of varying ages belonging to the Anti-Saloon League.

Their chants were similar to those of the Women’s Temperance Union, who warned of alcohol’s power to subvert morality, except this message centered on “immigrant hordes,” specifically the Irish, Italians and Jews, all “cultures of drink,” as they called them, incompatible with the great white Protestant way of life. 

Their particular message today was location specific. They had blocked the drinking fountain, demanding the right to remodel and rename it in dedication to their cause.

This practice of posting up temperance fountains had been around for a few decades. Prohibitionists claimed the more accessible bubblers there were, the less likely the populace would nip into a bar for a drink. As though simple thirst was what drove one to imbibe, Tony thought. But at least they looked appealing. 

According to a letter from Happy, the Women’s Group back home had constructed one of their own, right outside of poor old Stan’s Lee’s Saloon.

“Ugliest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen,” was Happy’s opinion. “I keep stubbing my toe on it when I leave the bar loaded. And since when is something a  _ donation _ when nobody goddamn asked for it in the first place?”

 

In this letter he’d also learned that Pepper had parted ways with the movement a year ago when talk of bringing hatchets to demonstrations got bandied about. She had also parted ways with her old-new-old name, Virginia, and started dating a nice fellow named Michael...or Markus...or something. 

The protestors were ostensibly a wall around the fountain. 

Well, bully for them, Tony was thirsty. 

He walked through the secondary ring of onlookers, singled out a particularly tight-assed looking demonstrator. They were the most fun to mess with. 

“Is this an ugly mug convention? Guess I wasn’t made aware because, well…obvious reasons.” He preened, and the protestor gaped. “Can a fella wet his whistle, or what?”

“We’re doing important work, here, sir. No one may pass.”

“If it were important wouldn’t there be some  _ proper _ barricades, security detail? Not a circle of twits with signs?”   
  


The sign-holder swallowed, blinked fast in the sunlight, where Tony stood deliberately. 

“Well, m-matter of fact,” he said, “we just got a telegram from senator Brigg’s about a possible donation-” 

“Well well,” Tony whistled. “How-de-doo.”

“That’s right. Now, uh, step aside, before-”

“Before what? You scrap with me? I thought that kind of thing was for dirty, drunken Catholics?” Tony laid on an Irish accent for effect, thumbed beneath his nose and adopted a fighting stance. 

He didn’t wake up itching for a fight, but then again, it never started that way. But there was something about a chucklehead waving a sign in his face and telling him how to live his life that really rattled his cage.

“Tony!” Called out a breathless voice. Running toward him, splitting through the crowd in a flurry of soft apology, was the person he was scheduled to meet, the brilliant Bruce Banner. A young man about Tony’s build and height, but meekly slouched, as to seem invisible, an impossible feat when one chose to associate with Tony Stark. His hair was unkempt and glasses bottle-thick and heavy. 

Without knowing any of the context, he knew to drag Tony away from the scene, as soon as possible.

“Whatever the hell it is, just let. It. Go…” He whispered in his ear, pulling him away.

“Alright, dear…” Tony stood, with dignity, rolled his shoulders like the day he left home. 

“Good luck with your fountain. Oh, and say hello to senator Brigg’s for me,” He added, making a lewd fellacio gesture with his fist. The protestor then did a spitting impression of a gulping, large-mouthed bass. 

~

Back at the science wing, where Bruce’s dormitory was located, things had started to heat up between the two young men when Bruce decided something had to be said about Tony’s behavior.

“Tony, Tony. Wait a second, we gotta talk.” he admonished, through kisses, grabbing the other’s face in his hands.

“What?”

 “You know you have to stop drawing so much attention to yourself. I need you to understand that.”  

“Afraid someone’s gonna snoop around and find me buggering you in a supply closet?”

“Yes, actually!” Bruce yelped, as Tony bit down on his tanned neck. He pulled away, hands against Tony’s chest, determined to make his point. “That’s exactly the kind of thing I’m worried about. Sure, it’s been real fun, studying together, but you know what isn’t fun? Getting thrown in prison because someone like that protestor decided to really stick it to you.”

Not that there had been much “studying” going on, given that Bruce was a physics major, and Tony, law. They mostly studied one another’s bodies and the things that got them off. 

“That protester also thinks Italians are born immoral drunkards.” Tony pointed out. “So what difference does it make?”

“The difference is you can’t be jailed for being Italian.”

“But you can change your name from  _ Benvenutti _ to  _ Banner  _ at Ellis Island…or hide the fact you used to talk like a  _ gol-darn redneck _ from Charleston. We all do what we must for the sake of appearances, my dear.” He kissed Bruce’s neck, mused softly, “I have so much to teach you about getting around problems instead of accepting things as they are. The school should refund you for not teaching a  _ science major _ that concept, of all things.”

“Tell that to the guys who got busted at Sloan’s.”

Just the other week, a small raid had taken place at a bathhouse, a men’s spa, two blocks from Hyde Park.

  


 

“They’re looking to get eight to twenty, last I heard,” Bruce added, of their prison sentences, the price of engaging in sodomy. ”How are they supposed to get out of a jam like that? Change their names or sweet-talk the prison guards?” 

“If they’re pretty enough, they could.” Tony joked, and Bruce shook his head.

“That’s on them for not being careful.” Tony scowled. “The real crime is making it harder for the rest of us miserable faggots to play a round of backgammon.”  

“How can you say that? You’ve  _ been _ to that bathhouse!” Bruce reminded, to which Tony shrugged and lit a cigarette, leaning back on one arm, the shirtless gorgeous bastard, Bruce thought. 

“Don’t go there anymore,” said bastard shrugged a naked shoulder. “Place was starting to fill up with wrinkly old chicken chasers. And anyway, when I  _ did _ go, I wasn’t a damn dope about it. I knew the right times, when the joint would pick up and start  _ drawing attention _ , as you say, and-” He put an arm around Bruce’s waist, drawing him close and rolling his cigarette to the other side of his mouth, grinning. “I was smart enough to stop sneaking around and find a hot little piece of my own.” 

Bruce made a sound that implied he wasn’t amused at being called a piece, and Tony drew back and shrugged. His guy could be such a prude, sometimes.

“It’s like anything else. If you’re not insatiable and stupid, you don’t have anything to worry about. Don’t blame the vice, blame the constitution,” he added, remembering what his father, whom he had not spoken to since leaving, had said over a decade ago. 

_ “I say, if’n you’re weak, that’s your own constitution. Don’t go blamin’ the liquor for that.” _

“You think that’s what this is, Tony?” Bruce said, softly. “A vice?”  

“What would  _ you _ call it? A courtship?”

“Under different circumstances, I suppose…”

  
“Now, wait just a rotten second...I’m the one drawing too much attention? You’re talking about putting on a dress and walking down the aisle-”

“Nice exaggeration. First rate.” Bruce countered. “Jesus, Tony-” He scraped a hand over his face. “Neither of us have the answer. Let’s just start there. There’s no precedent with which to draw any data...it’s like science-”

“So now we’re a science experiment. That’s much more flattering than my vice metaphor.” Tony groaned, flopping onto the bed they shared. “I don’t want to fight, it’s so boring. Get naked and tell me how electricity works, Brucie. I’ve had a long day.” 

When Bruce went on about groundbreaking theories, it was like poetry.

Bruce sighed. 

“Please?” Tony urged, and Bruce couldn’t resist those eyes. Privately, he resolved to bring the topic up later. There were still a few weeks left before they both graduated.

 He sighed.

“Alternating current or direct?”

~

The conversation about what “they were,” never came. 

Tony left for Philadelphia, claiming that he could not pass up the connections he’d made there. Bruce found it strange that despite this insistence, Tony had not made any plans to sell off furniture or other belongings, nor had he arranged  a place to live. It was all a mad scramble in the end, and they didn’t have much quality time to spend in the midst of it.

The offer to come along did not follow, and Bruce felt a fool of the highest order for expecting to be part of Tony’s story. 

This last minute decision called for a type of missive Tony had not yet used. A telegram, which differed from a letter in that the words were brought to a telegraph operator, who transmitted the message electronically. It was then printed and taken by a telegram boy and delivered to the recipient by hand.

 

 

A letter took weeks. A telegram, hours, depending on the efficiency of service. 

The young man sat down to put into writing, everything that was on his mind. There was a nebulous ache in his chest at the thought of leaving Bruce, seeing his friends again, and an unfamiliar trepidation about starting something new. Feeling raw and vulnerable, out poured words of apology, for being so evasive about whether he would return and how much he looked forward to the comforts of familiarity in an uncertain time. 

When he looked it over, he laughed. Would they even believe this came from him at all, or throw it out, thinking there had been a mixup? 

As he spoke to the Western Union employee in Chicago, it was brought to his attention that this type of message, unlike the handwritten sort, charged by the letter. 

So Tony’s finalized telegram read:

_ Happy, _

_ Coming home. Make space for me.  _

_ -Tony  _

~

 END OF ACT ONE 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://daily.jstor.org/feminist-history-prohibition/
> 
> https://www.missedinhistory.com/tags/war-of-the-currents.htm
> 
> https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/serial-killers/hh-holmes/


	3. Chapter 3

“The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it's egotism.” 

 

― **Robert Frost**

 

Chapter 3

  


_October 1917. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania_

 

Happy Hogan had taken five heated telegrams, stuttered out four flimsy in-person excuses and shooed away two solicitors before finally giving in and deciding to close up Tony’s law firm and go on a hunt for its missing namesake. 

 

It was Tony’s birthday, which always brought with it a certain brand of unpredictability. 

 

As Tony’s only employee, technically head of security, sometimes reception, and all things odd-job, he hadn’t been prepared to take on this much. Initially, it had been fun to play the boss-man, prop his feet up on Tony’s roll-top, mahogany desk, lit by a dripping purple and green Tiffany desk lamp, thumb through his expansive library and smoke a meaty, imported cigar. 

 

But as time wore on, it was apparent that the fashionably late Tony Stark may not show today at all, and worry began to set in. 

 

So a sign was hung to indicate temporary closure and off he went to find his boss and best friend, wherever in this great big city he might be. 

 

The first stop, Tony’s apartment, for which Happy had a spare key, was similarly furnished as the law office. Expensive and showy, a museum of Tony’s travels and experiences. A top floor penthouse overlooking the financial district of the city, smothered in art, shelves and glass-encased oddities. His bedroom was untidy. Fine clothing of every type of wear were strewn about, indecisively. An empty bottle of scotch sat on the end table beside his bed. Happy gripped it in a sweaty palm and sighed, knowing  where he had to look next.  

 

The second stop was Lee’s, still Tony’s favorite bar and still family owned and operated. 

 

The temperance fountain was still outside and Happy used it to splash his face. He wasn’t in the best of shape and running all over the city looking for Tony had taken a toll on his ticker. Additionally, the bar held a sobering significance.

 

Eight years ago, Happy had hit rock bottom with his alcoholism. And Tony had found him here, at the end of his rope, offered him a job and a shoulder to lean on. He knew he could never repay his friend, but in times like these, he hoped he came close to evening the score. 

 

He took a long drink from the fountain, wondering if these temperance-types were right about filling up on water dulling the urge to imbibe.

 

Luckily, he didn’t have to face that test. He hadn’t made it four paces toward the door, when it swung open and Russell emerged. Now the owner of Lee’s after Stan had passed, he’d grown into a more motivated but no less jovial man in his forties. He smiled wide when he saw Happy.

 

“Howdy, stranger!”

 

“Russ,” Happy nodded, swallowing down the lump that had developed in his throat. “Great timing.”

 

“Oh?”

 

“Is Tony in there?”

 

“Nosir.”

 

“Seen him at all, lately?”

 

“Not there now, no, and….probably a week since I saw him last, why?”  


“It’s his birthday.”

 

Russell’s face fell, knowingly.

 

“Shite.”

 

“Well,” Happy heaved a giant sigh. “That’s that, then. So, uh, how’s the family?”

 

“Oh you know, the usual, the usual.” 

 

“Mmm-hmm…” 

 

“Forget the small-talk, Hogan. Find Stark before he gets himself into trouble,” Russell said, with a knowing look.  

 

Next, he headed just two blocks short of Stark’s apartment. There, Tony had a rented space he used as a garage, where he kept his second car, a workbench and space for various projects, half-complete inventions he never seemed to have enough time for.  

 

There, coiled on the floor beside a vacuum cleaner that was strapped to an electric toy locomotive, was Tony.

 

**~**

 

Happy thought that getting Tony dressed in something suitable and back to work would have been trickiest part of this ordeal. But for the most part, Tony cooperated, gleefully explaining his newest invention: a self powered vacuum cleaner that kept busy while one was away.

 

Tony’s mostly-sober state of mind, once there, proved much worse.

 

“Are you listening, Happy? M’leavin.” Tony mumbled, from his high-backed, leather chair. “Goin’ to Paris. Boooon Voyage,” he waved, cracked open an eye. “That’s your cue to be upset, by the way.”

 

“You’re not going anywhere.” Happy returned, placing another glass of water in front of him. “Sober the hell up, I’m opening soon. Clients up my ass, driving me batty all morning-”

 

“I’m serious..”

 

“You’re delusional. And drunk. And reek of booze,” he noted, stepping into the private restroom attached to his office and spritzing his friend with cologne. 

 

Tony choked. “ _Excuse_ me?”

 

Happy leaned against the desk with a groan. “You’re not twenty-five anymore. Or even thirty-five,” he added, referring to that six year break Tony enjoyed in Europe, until the money ran dry and he came back home to do what he was good at. 

 

The clientele that followed were of a seedier sort, given that Tony had an entire life’s savings to rebuild, a lifestyle to maintain, and they were willing to pay top dollar for Tony’s particular brand of legal representation. The type of commitment that forced him to be available all the time, use extra caution, and bend morals he already thought were spring-shaped. It was running him ragged, more than he cared to admit.

 

“But I _look_ thirty-five,” Tony insisted. “...right?”

 

Happy sighed. “Oh yeah, just in time for the draft cut-off. Then some Kraut can blow you up and I’ll be rid of you for good.”

 

“Hmm...no need for conscription, I’d sign myself up. You know I can’t resist Uncle Sam’s foxy eyebrows.” Tony laughed, then groaned when the movement made his head swim. 

 

 

“Maybe you wanna think about taking on some extra help?” Happy suggested, straightening Tony’s lopsided lapel. “Like a secretary or something.”

 

“No.” Tony said, flatly, rising from his chair and slapping his friend’s fussing hands away from his necktie. “I didn’t get where I am using other people to do my dirty work.” 

 

“Until me,” Happy muttered, and Tony pointedly ignored him, straightened up, squared his shoulders, and wobbled on the spot. 

 

Clearing his throat, he asked, “who’s up first?”

 

His friend scrambled over to the notes he’d taken that day. “Well...chronologically, the first to arrive-”

 

“ _Chronologically_ ,” Tony repeated, rubbing the spot between his eyes. “Who’s ponying up the most?” He snapped his fingers. “Money, Hogan. Focus on the dough.”

 

“Alright, that would be….Governor Stane.”

 

“Oh, God.” Tony whined, buried his head in his hands. “I drank last night to forget that crazy ratfuck existed. How did his last telegram sound?” He asked through fingers, meekish. 

 

“Like daffodils and rainbows,” Happy drawled. “The guy bumped off his predecessor and he’s worried about going to jail. It wasn’t no sonnet, I can tell you that.”

 

“I’m fucked all to pieces, aren’t I?” 

 

Happy shrugged. “You’ve been in worse spots. Just take it one step at a time,” he said, sliding over a Western Union form. 

 

“Let him know you’re on it and not skipping town. That’s probably his biggest worry. Bides you enough time to sit down and come up with something concrete. I’ll run it over to the station-”

 

“-telephone’s good enough-”

 

“Stane doesn’t-”

 

“Oh! Right, right, unsecure line.” 

 

“Seriously? Tony, we’ve been through this-”

 

“I _know_ , I know-”

 

During this time, a telephone operator would take an intended number and patch the customer through, from a network. Phone service was shared by multiple lines at once, known as “party lines,” meaning anyone on that line could pick up your call and listen in. Obadiah Stane would not abide by intercepted calls.

 

 

 “So I’ll take it to Western Union-” Happy continued. 

 

“You could just wait for the telegram boy to come by? I pay extra for that scheduled pick-up service-”

 

“Tony! Jesus….” the other man slapped his own forehead in frustration.

 

“Right,  right, _urgent_ , I got it!” Tony tapped the pen on his lower lip. “How does, please don’t murder me on sight, sound as an opener?”

 

“Just remember, Stane _needs_ you. Name another lawyer in this city that could’ve cleared him of his last charges.” He reminded Tony of the highly publicized racketeering scandal, two years prior. 

 

Tony considered this and willed himself to pen an apologetic but confident telegram to the governor, assuring him that his case was top priority. 

 

“After this,” Happy stood, clutching the finished telegram. “I’m going home to take a long, _long_ nap.” Happy said, pointedly, leaving Tony to finish sobering up and take whatever else came through the door until closing hours, which mercifully wasn’t for too much longer.

 

Either Happy had exaggerated, or the visitors from earlier had given up for the day, because there wasn’t a mighty rush after the sign was taken down, which was fine by Tony. Nursing hangovers had become a lengthy affair. 

 

Instead of retreating to his dimly lit office, he lounged at the front reception area, drank in the sunlight and another cold glass of water.

 

Maybe Happy was right. He was getting too long in the tooth for this kind of lifestyle. His bones ached and head throbbed. He even cringed at the tinkling of the bell above the door of his practice.

 

“Mm’ello-” his voice came out an irritated croak, but when when he saw who it was, he sat up, and laid on the charm, hoping that Happy applied enough cologne. 

 

“Ah, four-fifteen already, Peter?”

 

“If I’m here, then too-right it is!” Chirped the telegram delivery boy standing in the entryway, bouncing on his heels. 

 

Tony stood to greet the attractive young man and looked him up and down. He swore, like a Georgia peach, this one got sweeter by the day. Five foot seven or so, lean, doe-eyed and handsome, he delivered and picked up telegrams every Monday and Thursday. 

 

“New uniform?” The older man gestured to the smart, navy blue coat split down the middle by rich gold buttons and a pair of dark trousers, deliciously fitted to match. Even more distinctive was the boxy postman’s cap, puffed at the top, pressed over a head of tawny curls. 

 

 

 “I’ve had the same uniform for three years, Mister Stark,” the boy laughed and shook his head, handing Tony some telegrams. 

 

Tony shrugged, eyeing the messages, flinging them to the floor, one by one. “Meh, boring. Boring. Junk.” he groused, and to his pleasure he stirred another little delighted laugh from the boy.

 

 “Guess it’s just that air of youth,” Tony gestured, vaguely, as he stepped closer, then squinted at Peter’s face. Right below his eye, resting above a dust of cheekbone freckles, was a plum colored shiner. 

 

“What’s this now...” He reached out, brushed the soft flesh and saw Peter bravely hold back a flinch.

 

“Get in a scrap with one of the boys at school?”

 

“Just fell off the old Whippet,” Peter said, gesturing to his delivery bike outside. “You know me.”

 

“Actually,” Tony eyed him up again. “I don’t.”

 

“...sorry?”

 

“I mean, you’ve been delivering my telegraphs for the past year and I only manage to get in a sentence or two, before-”

 

“M’sorry Mister Stark, but I’ve got to crack-on with my route-”

 

“Uh huh. That’s what I mean,” Stark put his hands on his hips. “What’s your next stop?”

 

“Uh...let’s see, just did the bakery. Now you. Next’ll be...Doctor Strange,” Peter said, fishing out the paper in question. 

 

“Brilliant. I’ll buy you some time.” 

 

Peter watched helplessly as his paper was snatched and Tony headed over to a telephone in the center of the room. 

 

“Mister Stark!” 

 

The operator’s voice came through, and Tony held up a finger. He grinned, amused by the young man’s face, eyes wet melted chocolate, and mouth open, working words he knew weren’t allowed.

 

“836-2931. Thank you.” He recited, and turned his attention back to Peter. “Careful, you’ll catch june bugs with that mouth,” he called out, “come over here, boy, don’t make me holler across the room.” 

 

Peter clamped his trap shut and obeyed, shuffling deeper into the office, farther than he’d ever been, to endure whatever Stark had in mind. As the phone rang on the other end, Tony observed him. The boy was obedient, trained, and very good at keeping his composure. 

 

“Stephen? It’s Stark. I have a telegram for you...no, got here by mistake. Some new kid, high on opium or something, anyhow, here’s what it says: Stephen, I have been waylaid in San Francisco. Be certain, I will arrive by the end of the month with more supply. Sincerely,  Wong.” Tony finished, asking, “alright, got that? Have a nice day, you four-flushin’ quack.” 

 

Peter sputtered adorably. “Y’can’t just _do_ that!”

 

Tony waved off his concern. “Strange and I go way back. I financed his side-business and now he cuts me a big, fat check every month to say thanks.” 

 

Peter blinked. “Financed?”

 

“It means I gave him money to start up.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Why?” Tony laughed. “Because I wanted to.” And when Peter just tipped his head like a puppy, he invested more thought. 

 

“I saw an idea and liked it. Wanted to watch it grow, knowing it couldn’t have happened without me. In a way, it’s like a reward for seeing the potential in something. Make sense?”

 

Peter nodded. “Guess I just never think about that sort of thing..maybe if I had money, I would.”

 

Tony crossed his arms. “Throwing all your tips away at the saloon, Parker?”.

 

“Ten siblings. Me ‘da been out of work for a while.” 

 

“Ah,” Tony replied. “They still make familles that big? I’ll be damned.”

 

“And I’ll be Catholic.” Peter shrugged, and elaborated, when Tony looked surprised. “Grandparents went by Párcar when they emigrated from Ireland durin’ the famine.”

 

“See, I’m learning so much already.” Tony said. “So what do you do for fun, Peter _Parcar_?” 

 

“I like to get out and explore the city. On bicycle, mostly.” Peter said, then bit his lip bashfully. 

 

“That sounded more funny in my head.”

 

Tony laughed. “No, I get it...because you ride a bicycle all day long.” 

 

“Uh-huh,” Peter already looked more button-downed, more loose. Tony wagered that he’d saved him about seven minutes. The clock was ticking…

 

“So really? Nothing else?”

 

“Not a whole lot of free time, m’fraid.” He jerked his chin at the telephone. “Maybe if everyone had one of those beauties ...”

 

“Then you’d just be sitting at a desk all day, taking ten times as many calls as telegrams.” 

 

Peter made a face, his soft pink mouth pinching at the thought. “Oi, no thank you then. At least I get some fresh air this way. Can be a mite tiring, but…” He trailed off, shrugging one slim shoulder. 

 

“Where are my manners? You must work up a thirst.” Tony scolded himself. “Can I offer you a glass of water, bottle of coke….maybe something harder?”

 

“I’d love a bit of cola..” 

 

“I’ll be right back,” Tony headed to his office and emerged with a bottle. 

 

“You got one of those jim-dandy electric icebox back there? Wow!”

 

“Small kitchen annex with an electric refrigerator. Doesn’t everyone?” 

 

“Blimey, I haven’t had one of these in ages.” Peter gripped the cold glass like a magic lamp, as though a genie might puff out and grant him wishes. Given his reaction to the fizzy treat, sliding down his throat, he’d probably just wish for three more bottles of coke.

 

He drank half of it in one go, eyes closed in pleasure and throat bobbing. Stark felt his manhood stir at the suggestive image and the truly filthy sounds the boy unwittingly made. All he needed was a goddamn hotdog to go with it to make the scene truly pornographic.

 

One more chug and it was gone. One more chug after that, and Tony would have had a serious problem on his hands.

 

“Thank you, sir.” Peter licked his lips, which didn’t help the situation, and handed Tony the bottle.

 

 “I’m sorry to drink and run but I really do have to get a wiggle on.”

 

“Of course. Until next time,” Tony guided Peter out, his ringed hand against the small of his back. 

 

“Four-fifteen. Sharp,” Peter grinned, tipping the rim of his hat. “Mister Stark.”

 

Tony mimicked the same. “Mister Parker.”

 

And the boy was off. Tony stepped out of his practice to watch him weave through rush hour traffic like a swallow being chased by a hawk. His stomach lurched from keeping his composure for so long, so he slunk back inside to resume being the hungover ghoul he secretly was. 

 

It was still over an hour and a half until closing time, but he figured he may as well end the day on a high note, so he turned the closed sign back around, flopped onto the reception room chair and fell asleep, dreaming of bits and pieces of his youth, a chipper telegram delivery boy with Hershey chocolate eyes and a cherry phosphate mouth. 

 

~

When Tony woke up, it was still his birthday, but at eleven twenty p.m., not for much longer. 

 

Something about the fact he had done nothing but mope around feeling sorry for himself, topped off the afternoon flirting with a pretty boy he didn’t end  up in bed with, with no real calculable celebration, did not sit well with a man like Tony Stark. So he decided to go out and do what one is supposed to, when marking their cumulative time on Earth: indulge, indulge, indulge.

 

What he really wanted to indulge in was the telegram boy. Nibble at his throat, taste his soda pop lips and paw at the perky caboose under those neatly pressed trousers, then feed him every sweet thing in his “jim-dandy electric ice box” as a reward. See if, bared and excited by his touch and praise, the rest of his body would flush the way his fair Irish cheeks had.

 

But it was midnight, and Peter had probably finished his homework and chores like a good lad, tucked his litter of siblings in, kneeled at his bedside and thanked each glorious saint, one by one, for his substandard existence, and winked off to dreamland.

 

So Tony showered, dressed, climbed into his brand new red and gold Rolls Royce, and headed to the red light district. If nothing else, he would end this day with _someone_ warm and beautiful taking pleasure on his cock.   

 

 

The streets at that time of night were light, because most businesses had closed, but gradually thickened as Tony neared his destination, an area of the city that never truly slept, or ate, or did anything responsibly. 

 

He honked a few times, mostly to wake himself up and to enjoy its crisp distinction from other cars, a ringing boast in the cool night air. It was the newest model out there and custom, to boot. 

 

 _Honk, honk_.

 

Maybe, he thought, I’ll go out west….

 

He’d already been to Europe, and though it was fun, lord almighty could those cities bleed a man dry. 

 

_Honk, honk._

 

The West, now, one could make a fortune there….

 

He shook his head. Fifty years ago, maybe. The time of outlaws, shoot-outs and gold rushes was over and frankly, most of the imagery that had captivated him as a boy had been greatly romanticized in the first place. 

 

_Honk, honk…...HONK!!!_

 

The third horn was genuine, as something flashed by his right side and nearly clipped him. He watched, gobsmacked, as it ran ahead and turned right. Irritated that his new wheels had almost been damaged, he followed the bastard. Tony knew these streets well and managed to intercept it from the other side.

 

The vehicle in question, slowing now to veer into a side street, was a bicycle.

 

In its seat, back low and  face dipped, shielded by a pointed, navy hat, gold buttons reflected off yellow street lamps, was Peter Parker.

 

“Well Happy Birthday to me….” Tony muttered, grinning behind the wheel, looping around to back into a frantic park job, as close to the mouth of the side-street as he could. He wouldn’t risk parking _Friday_ , as he had named her, down something so perilously narrow, not even in pursuit of a story this tantalizing. 

 

He left his Rolls and kept a distance at a brisk walk, toeing the edge of each disc of street light, in case Peter decided to glance behind. Clearly focused on his task, he never did. 

 

The plot thickened into a full-blown stew, when he saw the building Peter finally entered, the very same place that Tony had planned to spend the rest of his evening, a little nightspot that fronted as a typical bar, but the back of which yielded a service of a more sordid nature.

 

Peter had gone through the back way, which Tony usually did, and parked his bike outside before heading in. 

 

Tony went in through the front. 

 

The bar was its usual sparse affair, patrons either waiting for a trick or killing time. The bartender, Stu, sent Tony a curious look, when he saw that he had chosen the front door. 

 

Tony entered fully, arms outstretched. 

 

“Guess who’s one year older today?”

 

“Hey now! Birthday boy...what’ll it be?”

 

“Gin and tonic,” Tony tapped the bar with his knuckles, looked around. “Thought I’d socialize a bit, before the main event....erm...lively crowd. Watch my drink, while I use the facilities? You know how these creeps get and I’m still pretty damn cute, you know.” 

 

“You got it, chief.” 

 

Tony nodded his thanks and left to find Peter. 

 

He found him shortly, while hovering behind a dusty velvet curtain that partitioned the reception area of the brothel from the hallway that lead to it. He could hear Justin Hammer, manager of both operations, but he spoke low, so Tony inched in and managed to see, through the parting of the curtain, the young man he was looking for. 

 

Still dressed in his telegram uniform, cornered, but composed. Hammer was sliming a hand down Peter’s back pocket.

 

“A little something extra, for coming so quickly,” he said, squeezing Peter’s hind-cheek and barking out a laugh. “That’s not usually a thing of praise, around here.”

 

Peter didn’t squirm or bat an eye. Hammer used his position to draw him closer, put his free hand on Peter’s other hip, and it was then the boy pulled away smoothly.

 

“Western will have my hide if show up with a crumpled uniform, sir-”

 

“Lucky them. One of these days I’ll get you to stay for a drink, Peter-”

 

“Long as there’s telegram’s need getting someplace, afraid that’s not possible.” 

 

“Oh, pet, that might be sooner than you think,” Justin pouted with mock concern, “telephones, and all….if you don’t age out of the fleet or get drafted first. You’re what, eighteen soon?”

 

“In a month, sir…”

 

“Little _old_ for this job, aren’t you?”

 

“Eighteen’s the oldest they hire, far as I know.”

 

Tony could see the greedy glint in Hammer’s eyes from where he lurked.

 

“Well, if all goes pear-shaped, you wouldn’t have to wait long for another paycheck, while I’m head of this establishment....” he shrugged, lightly. “Some food for thought.” 

 

“Mm-hm.” Peter’s lips were pursed tight, polite. “So, um..is there anything _else_ you need, before I go?”

 

“Ah, that whip crack memory.” Hammer said, tapping his nose. “Second Thursday of the month. Of course.” 

 

The manager slid his desk over a few inches, bent to a section of floorboards its leg had been over, revealing one wooden, removable slat. Tucked away, in a secret compartment, was a small bag of cocaine.   

 

Hammer gave it to the boy, who slipped  it into his inner breast pocket, without question.

 

“I’m going to need five more of you, the way business is picking up,” Hammer commented. “You know they used to put that stuff in coca-cola?”

 

Peter’s brows shot up. “No kiddin’?” 

 

“And now, poof! Illegal. Ridiculous.” Hammer scoffed.

 

“I think cola is bee knees the way it is.” Peter shrugged.

 

“Bees Knees? That’s a new one... thank you for keeping this old man in the loop. Ah Peter, is there an end to your usefulness? But I won’t keep you any longer. Go on, little spider, scamper off and weave through traffic, I know you have more stops to make, customers to tease. Oh, and pet-”

 

The boy turned, hand gripping the door handle. 

 

“Watch out for officer Shmidt,” he laughed. “He’s been sniffing around after the….incident, last month. Probably itching to talk to a telegram boy who works these parts.”

 

“He’d have to catch me, first.” Peter said, devoid of the same mirth, and left. The door closed behind him and Tony emerged from his hiding spot.

 

“Stark?” Hammer clasped his hands together. “What are you doing, bo-peeping back there? Come here and listen to my splendid news. I just got a telegram. My father died and he’s leaving me eight hundred dollars. I’ll get to build an actual _wall_ between the cathouse and the saloon!” He smoothed the front of his suit and danced over.

 

“So, your usual?” 

 

“In a minute,” Tony said. “The boy who was just here-”

 

“That was a messenger, Stark, not a whore….then again, everyone has a price. I’m still trying to figure out that one’s. Bonny lad, isn’t he?”

 

“Does he deliver here often?”

 

Hammer lifted up a so-so hand, “once or twice a week. Always a pleasure. Why?”  


“Just curious. He works in my neighborhood.”

 

“Darling, Peter works in _everyone’s_ neighborhood. They pay by the mile and he’s as speedy as they come. Make hay while the sun is shining, and all that. Fine young lad, with a firm, healthy body, and my goodness when he flexes those arms….ah...what was I talking about?”

 

“The kid is fast.”

 

“The slow ones don’t last on these routes. Robbed, stabbed, or picked off the streets by traffickers,” he laughed, a nasty, wheezing sound. “Found one a few weeks ago, down by the docks. Looked like he’d been gutted with bowie knife. Fancy knowing what _he_ was carrying at the time.”

 

Tony played with the gold ring on his index finger, digesting this information.

 

“Any other questions, before I summon Elijah? Or would you rather stand around and talk about a boy who _won’t_ be spreading his legs for you tonight?”

 

“Sure,” Tony said, stopping the conversation short of the drug  exchange. “Bring him out.”

 

~

Try as he may, Tony could not stop thinking about Peter who evidently, in addition to his usual routes, was a part-time drug mule. The healing black eye suddenly had a much more likely story behind it. 

 

“You seem distracted, sugar.” Elijah, the young prostitute in his lap said, cupping Stark’s stubbled cheek. “Somethin’ on your mind?”

 

Tony looked at him wonderingly, surprised that he’d been brought so low that a whore could see right through him, down to the jelly center of his weakness. 

 

This wouldn’t do at all. 

 

He surged forward, laying his partner out flat, clasped his hips and spoke beside his ear.

 

“Sorry, baby. Long day.” he said, feeling rejuvenated and inspired on multiple fronts. The familiar high he’d get when an exciting new venture came along, something worth investing in. By hook or by crook, he was busting free of these pathetic doldrums.

 

Elijah gasped, as Tony’s oiled prick slid inside him to the hilt. The older man shuddered, muscles trembling out months of tension. 

 

“But I think,” he grunted, began to thrust, “I just got my second wind.”

 

 


End file.
